Japan needs a new leader, Kishida during a news conference in Tokyo today
After almost three years in the job, the once-popular premier said that the LDP
needed a new face at the helm to help draw a line under two scandals that have
undermined public confidence one about links to a fringe religion and another
over slush funds.
Freshening up the LDP's image may go some way to improving its performance in the next general election, which must be held in the coming year or so. But the problems facing the most indebted of the world's wealthy nations stretch far beyond anger over corruption.
Kishida sounded the alarm over a dwindling population he said could leave society unable to function, and sought to resolve the problem by raising spending on children and young families to levels he said would match those of child-friendly Sweden.
Anxious to demonstrate Japan's ability to stand up to its increasingly threatening neighbors alongside Russia's aggression, North Korea has been shooting off missiles lately and a territorial dispute with China continues to simmer he also pledged to increase defense spending by about 60% over five years.
Yet a public that's seen real incomes fall during his premiership is hostile to the idea of tax hikes to pay for these ambitious plans. That's as the Bank of Japan starts to normalize the ultra-easy monetary policy that's helped limit the cost of more borrowing.
Japan has a habit of churning through prime ministers.
Whoever beats what looks to be a crowded field to take over from Kishida will be hard-pressed to find a way forward without alienating a disgruntled electorate. Isabel Reynolds
Kishida during a news conference in Tokyo today. Photographer: Philip Fong/AFP/Bloomberg
Freshening up the LDP's image may go some way to improving its performance in the next general election, which must be held in the coming year or so. But the problems facing the most indebted of the world's wealthy nations stretch far beyond anger over corruption.
Kishida sounded the alarm over a dwindling population he said could leave society unable to function, and sought to resolve the problem by raising spending on children and young families to levels he said would match those of child-friendly Sweden.
Anxious to demonstrate Japan's ability to stand up to its increasingly threatening neighbors alongside Russia's aggression, North Korea has been shooting off missiles lately and a territorial dispute with China continues to simmer he also pledged to increase defense spending by about 60% over five years.
Yet a public that's seen real incomes fall during his premiership is hostile to the idea of tax hikes to pay for these ambitious plans. That's as the Bank of Japan starts to normalize the ultra-easy monetary policy that's helped limit the cost of more borrowing.
Japan has a habit of churning through prime ministers.
Whoever beats what looks to be a crowded field to take over from Kishida will be hard-pressed to find a way forward without alienating a disgruntled electorate. Isabel Reynolds
Kishida during a news conference in Tokyo today. Photographer: Philip Fong/AFP/Bloomberg
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